


Till Love Do Us Part

by flipflop_diva



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Porn, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, HP: EWE, Implied Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Infidelity, Post - Deathly Hallows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 14:02:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2735255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The knots in her stomach weren’t from cold feet or from excited anticipation or from anything a bride-to-be should have knots over. These knots were from sadness and hopelessness and from maybe losing the one man she loved more than anything in the world. A man who was not her fiancé. Set post-Deathly Hallows but most definitely EWE.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Till Love Do Us Part

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [the Hermione Smut fest](http://hermione-smut.livejournal.com) on LJ. Original entry is [here](http://hermione-smut.livejournal.com/102919.html). Based on the prompt _Hermione's about to marry Ron, but the night before the wedding, she has one last fling with her true love._

The knots in her stomach weren’t from cold feet or from excited anticipation. They weren’t from knowing that in just under fifteen hours she would be walking down a long aisle, dressed in a gown of white satin and lace, all her family and friends surrounding her in celebration.

In fact, the knots weren’t from anything a bride-to-be should normally have knots over. They were far different. Knots of sadness and hopelessness. Knots of fear. Knots of love filled with despair.

And she couldn’t just continue lying there, in her bed, staring at the ceiling and waiting for them to dissolve.

She slipped out of bed, careful not to make a noise. It was quiet in her flat, the sound of breathing and the distant hoot of an owl the only things to disturb the perfect silence. 

She crept past her three bridesmaids — Ginny, Luna, Fleur — all held in the arms of sleep, hoping none of them would wake up and notice her absence. But she couldn’t stay here. She just couldn’t. The desire for one last moment, one last time, was growing too strong. It was fueling her forward, tearing her concentration away from anything other than it.

She toed into her white ballet flats, the same shoes she was supposed to wear under her bridal gown in the morning. Her cloak went on easily over her white nightdress. She picked up her wand and slid out the front door, the only sound the soft click as it shut behind her.

The knots in her stomach leapt into her throat as she stood on her front stoop. She probably shouldn’t be doing this — they had already said their goodbyes, on a frosty evening two weeks ago — but she just couldn’t stay away. It hurt too much to think about never having another moment.

And then it was too late anyway. She was spinning around, her mind focused on one place, and then her body was compressed into time and space and suddenly there she was, on his front stoop.

She almost choked on the cry that surged unexpectedly from her throat. She raised her hand to knock, but before she could, the door flew open, and there he was, as though he had been waiting for her to show up.

Maybe he had. 

“Hermione,” he breathed, and the look of pure love tangled with intense loathing was so prominent on his features that, this time, when the sob tore out of her, she didn’t even try to stop it. Instead, she stumbled forward, into his arms, burying her head in the warm spot between his shoulder and his neck. 

“Harry,” she sobbed.

He pulled her inside, closing his own front door behind them, and they just stood there, in his entranceway, wrapped together. He didn’t ask her what was wrong, or why she was crying, but he didn’t need to. He knew the same pain all too well.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he finally managed, and his voice was as broken as she felt. “This is wrong.”

“I couldn’t stay away,” she whispered. She pulled back, clasping his face between her hands, making him look at her — at the emotion written across her face, at the tears dripping down her pale flesh. “I just couldn’t.”

And then their lips were meeting, fused together as if by a cosmic force neither could control. Their movements were desperate, hungry. She tangled her fingers in his hair and bashed her lips against his. He bit down on her lower lip and then forced his tongue inside her mouth. She could feel his hands squeezing her hips, maybe leaving bruises with their force.

They sucked and nipped and licked, teeth gnashing and tongues dueling. She felt a sharp sting of pain and tasted the bitterness of blood when he bit down a little too hard, but she only yanked on his hair in return and ground her body up against him. She could feel him against her thigh, and she couldn’t wait anymore.

Her hands found the hem of the shirt he had on and she yanked it upward.

“Hermione,” he grunted into her mouth. “We shouldn’t.”

But she was still yanking the material upward, and fresh tears were springing from her eyes and her breath was shallow and stilted, and she knew that he saw all of that, and he could never deny her anything. It had been their problem the entire time. So he moved his head away from her lips and let her slide the material up and off. And then his hands were pushing her cloak off her shoulders, her wand pinging onto the floor as it fell.

She found his lips again and pushed him backward, their feet tracing familiar patterns down the hall and over carpet until they tumbled together onto the sitting room couch. 

She ran her nails down his chest, following their path with her lips. She wanted to taste him, every inch of him, to sear his scent and his taste into her memories forever. His hands found the bottom of her nightdress, and he lifted it up. She leaned back for a second as he pulled it over her head, and she met his eyes — eyes that were full of lust and love and shame and guilt.

“Don’t look like that. Please,” she managed, but Harry just shook his head.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he said again. He only said it once, but it rang in her head, over and over, like a mantra. And why shouldn’t it? He had been saying it for months, maybe for years. The first time it happened, alone in the tent when they were hunting for Horcruxes and Ron had left them. The second time it happened, alone in Harry’s dorm room the night the war ended while Ron and his family mourned Fred’s death floors below them. The third time it happened, the fourth time, the fifth time. The times she stopped counting. 

The night she got engaged. The night she tried to call off her engagement. The night she told him she had to marry Ron, because it was what was expected and it was the right thing to do and the Weasleys were family — all of their family — and losing Ron would mean losing the Weasleys and Ron loved her and she loved Ron, even if it wasn’t in the way she loved Harry. 

The night he threw her out because he was too hurt and too angry to let her stay. The night he left her back in because he never could quite tell her no.

And now tonight, the night before it had to end. Because she couldn’t do that to Ron — she couldn’t do that to Harry — by continuing it. She shouldn’t even be doing it now, but she needed him. She needed him so much.

She pulled Harry’s mouth back to hers, closing her eyes, losing herself in him. His hands found her breasts, palming them, caressing them, his thumb scraping over her nipples. She moaned into his mouth and clutched at the back of his head, keeping his mouth attached to hers, not wanting to let go. 

His hands, so warm against her, trailed down her sides, across her belly, to the top of her knickers. There they paused. As did his lips moving against hers. She could feel his hesitation, so prominent between them. And then she felt something else. A patch of heat on the top of her head. It took her a moment to realize he, too, was crying, and her heart ached in her chest.

“Please,” she moaned into his mouth. It was the only thing she could say, the only thing she could think of to make this better. “Please.”

She felt a drop of moisture drip down onto her cheek. She opened her eyes, stared into Harry’s glassy ones. She pulled back just slightly, so slightly their lips were still almost touching.

“Harry,” she barely breathed. 

“I don’t know how to give you up,” he whispered back. “I don’t want to give you up. If I do this … if we do this …”

“Please,” she said again. It wasn’t the answer he wanted. It wasn’t the answer she wanted either. She thought back to her apartment, to her wedding dress hanging on her closet door, to the flowers in the vases lined up on the table, to her bridesmaids asleep on extra mattresses. She thought of the church and the response cards and the cake she and Ron had so painstakingly picked out.

She thought of Ron, of the way he touched her and looked at her and loved her, and of the excitement in his eyes when she said yes. 

She’d been so young. They had both been young. And everyone had said they were perfect together, everyone had said they were meant to be, everyone had said that her saying yes was the one thing that made Ron smile again after the death of his father in a tragic accident just thirteen months after the war ended, the one thing that made the whole Weasley family come together once more.

She couldn’t say no. Not then, not now. But Harry ….

More tears dripped down her own cheeks, mingling with those of the man in front of her. Her thoughts were whirling but she didn’t want to think. She just wanted to feel.

“ _Please_ ,” she said again, and even she could hear the desperation in her tone, ringing out into the room. And the man she was holding onto as if her life depended on it — maybe it did — could not refuse her once more.

His hands began to move, tugging her knickers down her legs to her knees, until they fell the rest of the way on their own. She stepped out of them, kicking them off, standing in front of the man she truly loved, letting him see every inch of her.

His eyes wandered down her body, taking her in, and she shivered under his look. His hands moved back up her legs from where they had let go of her knickers, caressing the backs of her knees, stroking her thighs and running behind her over her arse, until finally, his fingers delved between her legs, finding the intimate places he knew so well, and rubbing slowly and gently and lovingly.

She moaned, tilting her head back and closing her eyes, savoring the feel of his fingers continuing their motion, back and forth and back and forth, until — oh, there — his finger slipped inside her and she shuddered against him.

“Harry.” She called out his name, reaching for his shoulders to steady herself, as his motion didn’t falter, his finger working inside her, in and out and in and out, opening her up, preparing her for more. 

She arched her back and pushed herself deeper onto his hand, helping him along, whimpering as he added a second finger and then a third, finally clutching his head to her stomach to keep herself from falling over. 

And then his mouth was pressed against her, just where she needed it, and her legs were giving way, and then she was falling backward onto the floor, his head between her legs, his fingers still inside her, and she was jerking and crying out and he wasn’t stopping until she was shuddering around him and the tears were coming even faster than before.

“I can’t give you up,” Harry choked as he looked at her, his fingers still inside her, and her tears fell even harder. She pushed herself up on her elbows and then reached for his hand, helping him draw his fingers out of her. Then she found the clasp of his pants, pulled at the drawstring and watched as they fell from his hips.

She held onto him as he entered her, spreading her legs more to make it easier. She gasped, and sobbed, at the familiar sensation, at the feel of him filling her up, making her complete. She wrapped her arms around him as she lay back down on the floor, Harry on top of her, her legs locked around his waist.

They moved together, a perfectly practiced rhythm, slow and steady and then faster and faster. His hand moved between them, to find her clit, to caress her and stroke her just as he knew she liked. She raked her nails down his back and left marks she knew would still be there in the morning, bit down on his shoulder like she wanted to claim him.

He pushed her leg upward, tilted her hips, thrust in harder. His thumb scraped her clit, hard and painful, and his other hand tweaked her nipple, and then she was lost, her body convulsing around him as lights flickered behind her eyes and her sobs got trapped in her throat.

His motions were unsteady and ungraceful, his thrusts jerking her into the floor, painful against her over stimulated body, but she didn’t try to stop him, just wrapped herself tighter around him until, finally, she felt him release inside her, and they crumpled, together, both of them panting and crying and unwilling to let go.

When she opened her eyes again, she found herself staring into his. His beautiful green eyes that reflected everything she wanted to say but didn’t know how.

“Please don’t make me give you up,” he whispered. 

“It will kill Ron,” she whispered back.

“And you don’t think this will already?”

She pulled away from Harry and sat up. And suddenly she was seventeen years old again, making a choice to lose her virginity to her best friend in the whole world instead of the boy she was supposed to have been dating.

“What would I tell him?” she asked Harry, and her body was cold as she tried to picture what that would even entail.

“The truth,” Harry said, and then a whisper. “Please, Hermione.”

•••

She fell asleep in Harry’s arms, tucked against his naked body right there on the sitting room floor, exhausted and drained and confused and afraid. She awoke a few hours later, the clock on the wall pointing to eight in the morning.

Her bridesmaids would be waking up soon, if they weren’t already. They would be wondering where she was.

She slipped out of Harry’s grasp, finding her scattered clothes and putting them back on. 

This was the moment she had been dreading for months. She had to make a choice. The boy she had been with since Hogwarts or the man who had stolen her heart. One choice was a life she had always dreamed about — the perfect family, the perfect life. The other was full of pain and heartbreak — and a love she never thought she’d have.

She pressed her hand to her mouth to keep back a sob, wondering once more how this had become her life.

She slipped out the door, stood on Harry’s front stoop. She had to make a choice. She had to hurt someone. 

She didn’t know what to do, but it didn’t matter. Time was up.

She Apparated home.


End file.
